I'll Never Let Go
by emgirl1904
Summary: Rose lets go of Jack's hand, telling him she'll never let go and thinking she'll never see him again. But on the Carpathia, suprising things might be in store for her. Oneshot.


**A/N: Hey everyone! I've never written a Titanic fanfic, but I love the movie, so I figured I would give it a shot! Hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: Jack, Rose, all other characters and dialogue belong to James Cameron.**

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Rose could vaguely feel Jack's hand still hanging on to hers as she lay on top of the wooden door in the middle of the freezing North Atlantic. She couldn't think. She was so cold. But she remembered the song that Jack had sung in her ear, only hours ago. "Come Josephine… in my flying machine… going up she goes, up she goes…"

She could barely get the words out of her frozen lips. Her voice was faint and was less than a whisper. She continued to hum these words to herself, when she saw a bright light come on to her face. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but the light continued to grow brighter and brighter. _"Hello! Can anyone hear me! Is there anyone alive out there?" _

She heard the yelling. The words were slow and blurred in her ears, but she still heard it. She couldn't believe it. Rose slowly turned her head and felt the ice breaking in her hair. She smiled as best she could and turned over to Jack, who appeared to be sleeping in the freezing water.

"Jack, wake up, there's a boat… Jack, wake up! There's a boat…" Rose shook his hand gently and kept telling him to wake up for a few more seconds. Then the realization hit her… "Jack! Wake up! There's a boat Jack!" She shook his hand harder and spoke as loud as her voice would allow. "There's a boat Jack!" A single tear slid down her cheek as she looked up and saw the boat slowly moving away. She looked back down at Jack and began to sob. She laid her head back down, on top of her hand that was holding on to Jack's. She had no intention of going to that boat, until she remembered her promise.

"_You must promise me that you won't give up… No matter what happens… No matter how hopeless… Promise me now, Rose."_

"_I promise."_

"_And never let go of that promise…"_

"_I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go."_

Rose's eyes opened again. She knew that she had to keep that promise. She wouldn't let Jack down; she wouldn't break that promise, no matter what.

"Come back! Come back!" she called hopelessly, but her voice was even softer now because of her crying. Rose looked back at Jack one more time and pulled apart their frozen hands. She held on to his hand for a moment and kissed it hard. Then she looked at his face for what she knew would be the last time and slowly let him sink into the water. As his face slowly faded away, she said "I'll never let go, I promise."

Rose watched Jack sink until she couldn't see him any longer in the depths of the sea. She would never see his blazing blue eyes again. She would never see his golden hair falling into his eyes again. She would never see him again at all. He would only exist in her memory. She cried with a hurt and pain that she had never before felt, but she had to be strong for the moment and she knew that; the boat was getting farther and farther away and she had to get on. She had to keep her promise. Rose rolled off of the door she had been floating on and swam over to the dead officer who still had his whistle in his mouth. She took the whistle and blew with as much force as she could.

The light that the officer on the lifeboat was holding turned back in her direction. _"Come about!"_ they yelled. Rose blew the whistle harder until the light was shining right on her. The lifeboat came back in her direction and before long she was being pulled in to it. The officers wrapped blankets around her and laid her down so she could rest, but she knew she wouldn't rest for a long time. Everything about Rose felt numb, as if she had nothing else in the world could affect her, and in a way she knew that she was right. She vaguely felt the officers pull in one other survivor from this area and two more a little ways further, but that didn't matter to her. Jack Dawson was gone. Her wonderful Jack, who had showed her more love in four days than she had gotten in her entire life, was gone forever.

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The deck of the _Carpathia_ was crowded, but not as crowded as it should have been. There should have been more people on this deck. More lives should have been spared. Rose sat on a bench in the steerage section with a blanket wrapped around her head. She had gone straight to the steerage section without any doubt. She knew she would never go back to first class or to her old life. This was her life now, even if she didn't have Jack to share it with. Rose wanted this as her life now, because Rose Dewitt-Bukater had gone down with _Titanic_. Because of Jack Dawson, she was free.

Rose looked around her and saw women begging hysterically to know if their loved ones were on a survivor's list, even though they knew they were asking in vain. There were others who had simply given up and sat on the deck sobbing. Rose knew she should be one of them. One of the ones who had simply given up and sobbed for the loss of Jack, but she wasn't ready to cry. Not yet. Her face remained strong, but you could still see the pain that would never really go away.

"_You won't find any of your people down here, sir, it's all steerage."_

Rose looked cautiously around and saw Caledon Hockley walking down the stairs and look through all of the people on the deck; he was obviously looking for her. Rose turned back around slowly so she wouldn't attract his attention and held her breath as she heard him walk right behind her. She took a chance and looked at him once again and saw the disappointment on his face, thinking that Rose had gone down with the ship and died. But it was just as well that he thought that, because to him, she was dead. She wouldn't go back to him. Rose was going to keep her promise, and getting away from her family and Cal was step one.

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Rose stood next to the rail looking up at the Statue of Liberty. It was pouring rain and it was going strong as if it would never stop. It was as if God himself was crying for the loss of a man so great. Rose didn't care that she was getting soaked; she wanted these to be part of her tears too. A crewmember came up to Rose and pulled her out of her trance by asking, "Can I take your name please, love?" Rose looked around at the man and said, "Dawson. Rose Dawson."

The man walked on to the next group of people to take their names. Rose was proud of what she had done. She knew that what she had done was right, because she _was_ Rose Dawson. She would always be Rose Dawson, even if she married and her name legally changed, because Jack's love had left a stamp on Rose's heart that would never go away and part of her heart would be reserved just for him. Always.

She looked back up into the rain and back up at the Statue of Liberty and absent mindedly stuck her hands in her pocket. Her hand hit something hard and she was confused. What on earth could possibly be in this jacket? She pulled the object out and her eyes got wide. The Heart of the Ocean. She had it all this time. That was probably why Cal had chased her and Jack and tried to shoot them. It all made sense now. But Rose decided she would keep the diamond. It held bittersweet memories with it; memories of Jack. She smiled the faintest smile. Maybe it was time to cry.

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Rose ran to the front of the ship with all of the speed in her. She wanted to fly again; just this one last time. And this time, she could let everything go while she was flying. She could already feel the tears building up in her eyes as she came closer. There was a man standing at the railing and he had a black coat on and a hood over his head. He seemed to be crying softly and silently, but with as much pain as Rose was feeling. Rose felt a wave of grief and sorrow for the man, but then she went past him and climbed on to the railing at the bow of the ship.

She spread her arms out wide as the ship slowly moved forward into New York harbor. She let the rain hit her as she flew the way that Jack had shown her. No, it wasn't the same without him holding her from behind, but she could almost feel him with her; and then the tears came. They ran down her face in streams and there were so many built up that they seemed they would never end. Her whole body shook with wretched sobs that she needed to get out. Rose remembered Jack singing in her ear, so she began to sing the same song again. "Come Josephine, in my flying machine, going up she goes, up she goes…" That was as much as Rose could manage to sing before her sobs became uncontrollable. She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sky and said, "I'm keeping my promise, Jack. I'll never let go, I'll never let go…" Rose kept saying it over and over again. She wouldn't let go. Not ever. After a few moments, she finally decided that it was time for her to get down, but she decided she wanted Jack to know one more thing before she left. "I love you, Jack," she said. She said it with every ounce of meaning she had in her body, but Rose wanted to get one last thing out. "And even though you never said it, I know you loved me too." Then with one last heart wrenching sob, she lowered her arms, and stopped flying.

Rose climbed off of the railing and stood there next to the man in the black coat and sobbed. She cried for the one man who had loved her enough to die for her. She cried for the man who had saved her in every way a person could be saved. Rose barely even noticed when the man in the black coat came closer to her and put an arm around her shoulder. But she did notice when he put his hand on her face and wiped away the stream of tears. Her head shot up to look at his face and to tell him to please go away, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out. All she saw was a pair of blazing blue eyes. Rose's whole body went numb again. One of her hands flew to her mouth and another one went up and took off his hood. And even though it was wet, she could still tell it was golden streaked hair, long enough to fall in his eyes. There were streaks on his face that showed that he had been crying, but now the tears had stopped. Rose couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Jack…"

Jack smiled at her with nothing but happiness. He took her face in his hands and kissed her hard, like they had been apart for a lifetime. Rose kissed him back with all the passion she had, but when they broke away, Rose looked at him and started crying all over again. "Jack, I saw you die. This can't be real, it can't. I let go of your hand and you sank… you died Jack! This can't be possible, I'm dreaming or…"

Jack put a finger on her lips to stop her from talking. "If you tried to wake me up then I sure didn't hear it. But once I sank down deep enough, that water started putting pressure on my head, and that woke me up fast. It scared me though to wake up under the water and I wondered what happened to you, so I swam back up fast as I could and you were gone. I looked all around, but you were gone. I couldn't find you. I thought you had fallen off the door and sunk to the bottom. I guess that guy in the lifeboat saw me, 'because the next thing I knew, I was sitting in the boat and some guy gave me this jacket and a blanket. I thought you were gone. I thought you broke your promise and…"

This time, Rose cut Jack off by throwing her arms around his neck and sobbing into his shirt. "I'll neverbreak my promise. But Jack, Icouldhave let you die!Oh, Jack, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

"What are you sorry for, huh? You didn't do anything wrong. It just took us a while longer to find each other."

"But Jack, _youdied_, and I lost you and…"

"What, you think that I would have left you? Besides I'm a survivor. And I've still gotta take you to Santa Monica, right?"

Rose laughed through her tears. "That's right. And you're going to have to show me how to ride like a man, and we can drink cheap beer, and ride on the roller coaster until we throw up and do all of it. Everything that's there, we can do it."

Jack laughed at her being so excited, but then he got really serious. "Rose, I was listening to you a minute ago when you were up there. And just so you can hear me say it, I do love you."

Rose smiled at him. "I know you do," she said. They both gave each other smiles and then Jack leaned down and kissed her again. Rose didn't even notice that the rain had stopped.

**A/N: Okay, yeah, so it was cheesy, but I just watched the movie, so I wanted to write it. This might turn into a story, but for now it stands as an oneshot because I'm still working on my Harry Potter fanfic called "After the War". But when I finish that, if I get enough reviews telling me they want me to continue, then I just might do that!**


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